


Marquise

by Kit



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: The Last Court
Genre: Demisexuality, F/F, Grey Ace Protagonist, I mean existential crisis, Pining, The Last Court, an inquisitor who legit thought she was doing the work of the divine, and has a bit of a moment when she realises she isn't, balcony dancing, by moment, eventual kink negotiation, eventually, has some very strange bits of lore, requited everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 15:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16121831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: “Vivienne?” Nasrin stood on the other side, good hand out to catch her as she staggered under what felt like the weight of re-forming bones. Theologically fascinating. But ghastly. “You still with me?”“Always, darling.”Nasrin of Serault never expected to find herself barred from her own woods when a visit from the Divine went horribly wrong. She never expected to rely on obscure Trevalyan relations at the arse end of Ostwick. She never expected to find herself at any sort of conclave. And she never expected to fall deeply in love with Madame Vivienne. A series of vignettes.





	1. [Her] Last Court

Nasrin itched. The air felt wrong on her face.

Val Royeaux was gaudy and loud and she was used to despising it from her own home as the capital that taxed and mocked and still came to her doors every month to ask for a discount on their finery. Her seneschal was from the capital. When she was sixteen ( _and eighteen, and thirty-two_ ) she would laugh in his face and retreat her woods, dogs at her heels and arm outstretched for Gyre, the best falcon she’d ever owned.

(”Talk to my cousin about the envoys, Oscar. You know he’ll agree with you the way you like.”

“But, your grace—

—Hush.”)

She’d take her birds and her dog and the forest was open to her—the Apple Woods and the Greatwoods and all the clearings that no one had thought to name. The capital, she thought, could laugh all they wanted.

Standing in Val Royeaux now, her jaw ached from chelnchiung. She was bare faced, the air sticky on the shorn back of her neck. The old cleric still mocked her from her knees, not knowing that Nasrin was a breath away from telling her that no, she did not murder the Divine, but she  _might_ , if she’d actually seen the woman. 

***

(Serault. Glittering and grand for the Divine’s feast. Emeralds warmed to blood temperature against her skin. The new mask was gold, lined-soft and easy on her face. She barely felt it. Her dress was lovely and almost right for her, a silken snatch of forest that pooled as she sank into a curtsy before the Lord of the Wood. 

“My lord,” she’d said. “You honour us. But..may I see the Divine’s gift, before you present it?”

_It’s taken too much work to get her here._

She might have cried when he struck her. Shock more than pain as attendants ran forward to trip over tables that suddenly remembered they’d been alive, the legs sprouting and tangling into a screen full of thorns that did not match the plants from which they grew. 

When  he spoke, Nasrin felt it in her gut and her hamstrings. Her throat. The back of her neck. All fear places. Prey places. His shape flickered, stag to man, and halfway between. His eyes, once liquid black, were filmed over. Blood was caked at the corners.

“No trust,  _huntress?”_ he said. “Enjoy your party. The woods are barred to you.”)  

***

 The crowd pushed in, trampling her thoughts and calling her  _herald_  or  _fraud_ by turns.

Not  _huntress_ , though she listened for it. Half hope and solid dread.

(Her Gyre was dead, and she was glad of it. Old age, the year before the Divine’s visit.

When the lord left, her dogs tried to tear out her throat.)

Now, she stared at the message in her hand. The paper was thick and near-smooth and weighted with seals.

> _A small party, my dear…_

“I’m not going.”

Cassandra winced. “We need all the allies we can find,” she said. Heavy tact through gritted teeth.

“I—” Nasrin swallowed. “I am not good at parties.”

“That, I can sympathise with, herald,” Cassandra said. “But they chase after you. Haven’t you noticed?”

“I—”  _I’ll be recognised. I’ll be a laughing stock. I don’t, I can’t_ —”I’m not wearing a dress.”

Cassandra’s smile was almost worth the discomfort and her useless tongue, the noise of the city fading as Nasrin felt the other woman’s full attention. “And that,” she said, “Is something I can back you up on.”

***

“I  _know_ you.”

The words came in a quiet moment, the ice of Madame de Fer’s welcoming display still puddling in the front hall. The woman herself had them closeted in a small balcony. Nasrin’s hands fisted in her shirt while the first enchanter of Montsimmard  leaned over the smooth stone railing.

Vivnenne’s mask shone silver as she smiled.  

“You never traveled to Serault,”  Nasrin said. Blunt words and the hope of a quick escape.

Nasrin watched the other woman’s nose wrinkle, just a little, and sighed. She was bare and lead-mouthed.  Tired and out of practice. “The estate,” she admitted, “Would have shone for your visit.”

The scene flowered in her mind. There would be a frenzy of preparation. A world of polishing and setting and Oscar threatening to give his notice, all so that glass spilling glory all over her house. Any  visitor could forget the travel and the chill, when faced with the mix of fragility and wrought iron that made Serault stunning.

Nasrin would have grumbled at the fuss. She’d have sworn and broken things and gotten in the way more than she didn’t. And that, too, would be worth something. The hours spent in the firs, the forest rich with dying life, her hand following childhood trail marks. And she’d come back, wash off the mud and pull out the leaves, to face this woman in something gilded and green, her head high as the mage took in their small centre.

Nasrin would have taken any judgment and thrown it back with a smile.  

Now, she looked at Vivienne and wondered the other woman saw.

“What do you want?” Nasrin asked.

Half a smile. A huff of breath. “You’ve made plenty of foolish choices, my dear,” she said. “Leaving me out of all of this would be another one.”

“I don’t want your magic,” Nasrin snapped. “Some scholar you are, if you can’t think why.”  

“Don’t be a coward,  _marquise_.”

“I don’t own that title.”

“No?” Vivienne tilted her head, and Nasrin imaged a raised eyebrow behind the metal. “Which one?”

_I will not squirm._

_***_

There were small moments of accord. Warmth and quiet pleasure whenever Nasrin stressed the full weight of her name as a counter to Sera’s teasing. Always  _Vivienne_ , never Viv or Vivi.

She did her best not to smirk when Varric calls Nasrin  _Duchess_ , and was surprised when the herald comes back to their dire, crumbling haven with old Circle texts wrapped carefully in cloth.

“I didn’t bleed on them,” she said, scuffing the dirt like a child. Vivienne resisted the urge to place fingers under chin, raise her so those remarkable eyes of hers would see Vivienne and the gratitude it was never quite right to express.

“The Circle values your efforts,” she said instead. It did. She did, and she would grow. There would be a library for these found treasures.

“You don’t ask for much,” Nasrin said. She did look up, then. Disheveled and rawboned and nothing like the portrait in an ill-favoured spot in Celene’s gallery of nobles. There were dreadful circles under her eyes. Her lips were chapped and there was no gold in her hair. Only split ends and threads of grey.

 _Bastien_ , she thought.  _You would laugh._

“Whatever do you mean, my dear?”

“You ask for books,” Nasrin said, shrugging. “Cassandra and Dorian have me murdering people who know how to rip out my spine and make me wear it as a necklace. Varric has me dancing all over the continent destroying red lyrium that sings off key and might make me go mad, and Solas can’t sense an elven artifact that isn’t two inches from a ledge that leads to a splintery death. The Iron Bull has me chasing  _dragons_. Books? Much safer.”

Vivienne covered her laugh with a hand. “That, herald, is because you haven’t read them.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vivienne watches the Herald settle into her Inquisition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please forgive the tense change. These all started out as separate tumblr vignettes.

The first thing Nasrin did when Skyhold had walls around most of its holes was re-stock the kitchens. The second thing was fire the cook.

“I am sorry, truly,” she said. “If you want to work elsewhere in the Inquisition I shall help you, but it’s just—” She did not suppress the shudder. “Everything is so  _Fereldan_.”

The story grew wings. The cook’s response moving  from: “Thanks and piss off, Inquisitor,” to “You do it yourself, then, you Orlesian fop” between tellings. Sera will never let her the end of it.

(“Some tit you are,  _lady_  herald. Funny how I’m surprised.”)

She did cook for them, and more than camp fare. Wine from the cellars and half the herbs in her small new gardens that crowded around the new chantry tower. There was mockery in that, too, though she caught Blackwall with his eyes closed over the sauce before he glared at her for her poor peace offering.

That man had too many secrets.

Vivienne caught her arm when she rose to return to the kitchens. “Try not to make the spectacle any worse by doing the washing up, my dear.”

She spoke in Orlesian. A quiet gift that made muscles loosen across her hands and down her back even as the others muttered imprecations and moved away.  

“At least it’s an honest spectacle.”

Vivienne sighed, leading her up the small sweep of stairs to her  balcony rooms. “You could have let the cook go with more grace,” she says. “You know that.”

“But I’m _not_  graceful,” she said. She flopped onto Vivienne’s spare chaise to emphasis the point.  

“Not in this setting, darling. But I’ve seen you hunt.”

Nasrin winced.

“Oh hush. We all have our strengths. And  I, for one, appreciate the change. Though we can’t have you cooking for us every night.” Vivienne sighed, easing her back with a minute movement that made Nasrin wonder if the other woman ever unwound enough to truly relax.

“Snob.”

Vivienne’s lips twitched. “You’re the one replacing staff according to their knowledge of vintners, marquise.”

“You can’t—” the words were heavy; the blush that went with them crawled up Nasrin’s neck. “You can’t call me that, Vivienne.”

Quick hands smoothed Nasrin’s collar, and she wondered at the quick, hot urge to lean in and press her lips to the other woman’s wrist. She swallowed.

“I just did,” Vivienne said. “Please, don’t be absurd.” She tilted her head, slow and assessing.  “You need it, I think.”

Nasrin pulled back, hard enough that two of her shirt buttons stayed in the mage’s hand, trailing cotton. “I can’t ever go back,” she said.

“Curses aren’t real, you know.” Vivienne’s lips were pressed in a  thin line. “Or perhaps you don’t, you peculiar country thing.  _Magic_  chased you out. And you have enough of that now to show your lord of the wood—whoever or whatever he truly is—a thing or two. Can’t is not a word for you, my dear.”    

***

“I have something for you.”

They were camped in the Wastes, dwarvan ruins a fragile anchor under the susurrus of air and sand. Nasrin was used to grit in her mouth, after weeks of this. She leaned into the banked fire, half-fletched arrows across her lap. She watched Vivienne’s shadow.

“You do?”

“So surprised, Inquisitor.”  She held out a slim hand. “Come here, dear. I’m not hunkering down.”

Nasrin smirked. “Even if it was life or death?”

“Honestly. You’re quite trying.”

Nasrin was not sure whether the impulse was wickedness or something very, very good, but lent forward and resting her forehead briefly against Vivienne’s knuckles before gripping her wrist to pull herself to her feet.

She expected an unlikely snort or predictable silence. She did not expect the other woman’s fingers to tangle, brief and sharp, in her hair.

When she stood, breathless, nothing showed on Vivienne’s face except a faint smile. She slid her arm into Nasrin’s and walked them to the edge of the camp, firelight giving way to spilled-ink shadows that blurred the two of them.

“What sort of gift is this, madame?”

“A small one. But privacy is best for these things, don’t think?” Vivienne’s smile was the one bright thing in their shared space. “Public gifts are for making a point.”

Nasrin chuckled. “I—can’t argue with you.”

“Delightful.” Vivienne pulled out of Nasrin’s hold and drew a small box out of her robe. “For the scars,” she said, reaching out to place a single finger at the base of Nasrin’s throat, where new skin met angrily with old.

The touch drew noise out of her. Low and cracking as Nasrin swallowed under her fingertip.

“The salve will help,” Vivienne said coolly, neither pulling back nor acknowledging the sound. “There and any of the other places. I can tell they pain you.”

Bite marks. Ragged lines the flesh of her throat and shoulder and upper thigh. Nasrin squirmed, eyes shut tight. “After the Divine’s party,” she said, “My dogs attacked. All three of them. The woods had turned against me, after all, and they were the hunters within it. Not me. Not truly. When the woods turned, they—”

“—dog bites rarely heal clean.” A brief splash of warmth as Vivienne’s hand rested on her cheek. “I do hope this helps. Goodnight, Inqusitor.”    


	3. fade terrors

They helped each other, in the last moments in the Fade when up and down blurred and ticks burrowed into Vivienne’s skin. Small teeth and itching poison that said  _there is nothing to save, and you are small. There is nothing worth memory._

Vivienne twitched under her insects as leaf shadows cut Nasrin’s face. A pack of dogs chased her, all sound and teeth but without a shape that the enchanter could see.

Nasrin kept a low guard stance and blood welled on her arms, tears in skin and shirtsleeve appearing between one blink and the next. Yips and howls stretched too long in the space-that-was-not-space, the air they were not breathing. Hawke was ahead of them both, her force magic a steady ache in Vivienne’s bones, her tall shadow giving the rest of them space to step, tangled words about sailors and sinking ships tripping back to them in a breathless six-eight.

“She’s  _singing_ ,” Nasrin gasped. “I don’t understand.”

“All this, and  _that’s_ what you pick up on, dear?”

“I—” she shook her head, close enough that a tear struck Vivienne’s cheek. “I just—”

“—Running now, collapsing later.” Vivienne bit back a hiss as a new tick borrowed in behind her ear. “If we must.”

( _They will laugh at you, when you are old. Madame de Fer turned a children’s taunt. The frail old woman who says “I knew people once!”)_

“Vivienne? Are you—”

“—Merely demons, darling.”

Warm fingers slid through her, callous a rasping distraction from the sting of fears that bit at her lips, her throat. The smile that went with it was tremulous, but Nasrin kept her chin raised, even as something growled and nipped at her heels. “Help me?” she asked, her other hand steadying Vivienne, bracing her upper back. “I  _really_ do not want to fall down in here.” More tears, her voice thick and her face shining with them under the light of the Fade.

Vivienne’s own smile hurt her face. “I can manage that, marquise.”

“I know.”

***

They stumbled on together, Loghain slashing at shadows and protecting Nasrin’s back even as he mutters about following Orlesians into the end of things. Varric kept up with Hawke. He laughed at her singing.

(”Join in! You’ll scare all the demons.”)

When the choice came, it was all tumult and teeth. The world rears up, Loghain shouted—refused to be saved from his own damn duty, not by Hawke and  _never_  by an Orlesian inquisitor who—

—who held his eye as Hawke stepped forward, unsmiling. She bent—all six-and-something-feet of her, and kissed the back of Varric’s hand as she let two names spill out.

Fenris. Isabela.

“They’ll look after each other,” Hawke said, and then she was holding her fingers up in salute as her magic uncurled and pushed  _out._ The others, even Vivienne, her shields worn into ragged cloth in the acid place, stumbled back back.

Liadan Hawke was left alone against the monsters.

“Run,” she said. A story voice. They obeyed. They ran until the light changed and Nasrin’s free hand was raised, bright and tearing and—

—no one came back on their feet. Vivienne was the first to wake, the stone gritty against her cheek, Nasrin’s arm limp across her back. She turned. Stood. Pulled the groggy huntress up with half a smile. “Clumsy, marquise.”

Nasrin shuddered. She pulled Loghain to his feet, managed not to fall when the hand she extended to Varric was knocked aside.

She spoke. Fought. And she moved as if she was pursued by a pack of hounds, even as Vivienne tried to brush invisible ticks from her skin. 

***

“I’m  _nothing_ ,” Nasrin whispered, when it was done. The words echoed Vivienne’s own fears so precisely that she almost lashed out, nearly pushed the other woman away as another demon given crueler shape.

Nasrin, eyes lowered, did not notice. “Not Andraste’s after all,” she said. “No Herald, no  _reason_ —”

Vivienne slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Some thoughts,” she said. “Are best not overheard. And  _these_ ones, darling, are beneath you.”

Her eyes widened, body going slack under the touch. Her lips moved against Vivienne’s palm.

“Yes?” Vivienne drew her hand again, fingers lingering at her jaw.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Nasrin said. “What  _is_  this, without belief?” More tears. Slow, as if she was nearly out of salt.

Vivienne sighed. She reached out, took her friend’s marked hand between her own. “Andraste is all very well,” she said. “But the dead many only do so much. The Divine showed us that.”

Nasrin’s lips twisted. “Perhaps saving me is recompense for that damned party. It’s poor taste.”

Nothing to say to that. Vivienne shook her head. Brushed her mouth over warm, dusty skin and the power buried beneath it. Her lips stung. Nasrin whimpered. A dangerous sound, matching the flush in her own cheeks, the coiled, unanswered question in her gut.

“Reasons,” Vivienne said, clearing her throat, “Can be many. And variable. Until you learn that,  _pretend._ ”

“Not with you,” Nasrin whispered.

Vivienne swallowed. Outside air, untouched by the Fade, still felt wrong her throat. “That’s your foolish choice.”

“Yes.”


	4. a heart of snow white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> guilt and grief and hope, not necessarily in that order

Letters come after the winter palace. The Inquisitor growls over court sittings, declaring that she loses the one bright part of her exile every time petitioners kneels at her feet.

“Enjoy it, darling.”

Vivienne is caught by the rueful twist to the other woman’s mouth.

“Never from this angle,” she says, turning away with her head held high and a flush creeping around the back of her neck.

Vivienne shakes her head, only to start as she finds The Iron Bull leaning against the nearest wall in the Great Hall, tankard in hand and eyebrow raised.

“Don’t lurk,” she says. “It’s unsettling.”

“Ma’am,” he says, with a weight in it that she wants to shrug away.

“Madame?” A page, bowing with flattering depth. She is glad of the interruption. The seal breaks easily under her fingers and the Bull has left before she reads that her chevaliers, well paid and well trained as they were, are dead.

_***_

**_“…In cases were the affliction continues mortal, lucidity and release from pain my still be gained.”_ **

The words do not change. Not even when Vivienne allows her shoulders to slump as dawn threads through her window, and Cullen’s early guard drills drift up in the light’s wake. She blinks. Acknowledges that yes, her neck aches and her eyes are full of grit, and her handwriting has stayed clear through hours of work.

The short slashing marks of Montsimmard shorthand keep the shape of her panic contained, but they hide nothing.

 _He has run out of time_.

The thought makes pain spike up her jaw, leap in quick, bright arcs over her forehead.

She stands, hand cupped over eyes until her shoulders have straightened and she can breathe between heartbeats.

She is glad and horrified that she knows a huntress.

***

“My dear, I am afraid I must ask you for your help.”

Nasrin’s chin lifts and Vivienne does her best not wince at the small tremors she cannnot change into something smoother and safer for this conversation. She watches the Inquisitor’s face.

She has washed and painted and healed any mark of the week’s research from her face and hands, but Nasrin’s lips are pressed together, brow furrowed.

A peculiar gift, knowing that the marquise has given up years of masks in her presence. It warms her, even as her throat tightens. The wind shifts, the struts of her balcony pressing her back, and Bastien’s voice is low in her ear. The memory treasured and out of place as  _my pet_  shifts to  _my sweet_ and  _beloved_  and phantom fingers smooth masks over her cheek and jaw.

_(”Watching you learn the game has been a great privilege.”_

_“I’ve always played it, Bastien.”_

Laughter in their bed, sheets soft over her skin. He looks at her with pride.

He  _looks_.)

“There is an alchemical formula that I must complete,” she says. “I have been unable to obtain one ingredient.”

Nasrin smiles. A small thing, lines deepening at the corners of her eyes, tracking into her cheek. “Your requests don’t  _usually_ get me half-killed—”

“—the heart of a snowy wyvern.”

“Oh.” Nasrin blinks. “That…might change things. For the—euh—deader, I mean. What are you  _making_?”

Vivienne laughs. It’s a shock, the sound too loud in her own ears, but the other woman’s face is open and appalled, even as she leans in.

Caught. And curious.

“You know the stories, then, marquise.”

A snort. “More than you, for once.”

“ _Nasrin_ —”

“— _Huntress_.” She grins. An expression that looks comfortable on her, though Vivienne has hardly seen it. Cocky and bright, it takes years from her. Her stance shifts. The muscles in her forearms limned in the brightening morning.

“You will do this, then?”

“I shouldn’t,” Nasrin says. Still smiling. Still hectic. She steps closer. “People die. It’s not sport, not sustenance. It’s…”

She trails off, abstracted, fingers playing on the balcony railing.

“It’s for you,” she says, in the end.

 _Foolish choices, marquise,_ Vivienne thinks.  _Foolish. And thank you._

“You are more than a match for any monster,” Vivienne says. The words would bolster the young and foolish. For Nasrin, even as she touches the jagged scars at her throat, they are truth. Vivienne’s hand clenches, the slick of sweat that breaks out on her palm hidden tight.

“You’re not going to tell me why, are you?” Nasrin asks.

“It’s…the matter is private,” Vivienne says. “I would do the same for you.”

Nasrin sighs. “I can find old pride for a new purpose, madame,” she says. “For you.”

***

A month. Torturous and full of too little sleep. The erstwhile Huntress of Serrault finds every pale scale and clawed step, dragging the rest of them through marsh that makes Sera swear with each sucking step.

They all draw straws for this mission. Vivienne keeps her head high, but Nasrin scowls at their reluctance. She reminds them all of lyrium thick in their throats and dragons with far more reach than a wyvern. 

They have, she chides, climbed sheer rock faces to find warden swords and fight pride demons.

“Another week in mud is not going to kill you, but  _I_ might.”

Watching the huntress is—

—Vivienne is unsettled. She expected more showmanship, though it is an odd thought amid sulphur and stories of beasts whose venom, if ingested, boils blood out of skin. But Nasrin has told her many things about the girl she was: brash and gilded, leading parties through her woods with bird and dogs and more time than sense. Now, Nasrin is bundled up in drab, feet silent and twigs caught in her hair.

“Are you all right?” Soft words, more seen than heard.

Vivienne does not answer impossible things. A raised eyebrow works well enough.

***

In the end, as Nasrin warned it must, the world narrows down to teeth and scale and screeching. Stagnant water heaves and spits and Vivienne’s ice melts more quickly than it ought. Her fingers ache from it, wires of pain following the tendons, coiling around each joint up to the elbow.

She tastes the rift in her mouth, Solas’s magic the screaming antithesis of her own—tugging at her even as it burns the creature, mixing in with Sera’s vile tinctures.

The Inquisitor shoots and orders. Shoots again. One eye is bruised shut from an early swipe from its tail, the skin blistered. Vivienne does not stare. She catalogues it against her own healing skill and finds a match, and  _does not look again._ She cannot. Should not.

She is used to danger in her fights. Demons and stupid people and Empress’s pleasure. The deadliest places she knows have beautiful windows and rich carpeting. This heaving, boiling mess is no  _more_  than what she knows, but is different enough to make her sweat. Her heartbeat feels as if it has pressed up close to the inside of her skin.

Nasrin cries out, even as Vivienne’s sword finds a vulnerable spot in the throat.

The wyvern twists.

Nasrin’s knives flash. Her bow is strapped hard and useless to her back as she tries to close, skin raw and steps weaving. Vivienne finds herself at Nasrin’s back, whispering imprecations that she can barely hear over the ringing in her own ears. Her arms ache. Her sword flickers and Nasrin—

—Nasrin  _sees_. She pushes forward, out of any scrap of magical protection, throwing one knife and running with the other.

When it dies, Nasrin is trapped beneath it. She holds its heart in her hand.

“That, Vivienne breathes, “Was unnecessarily spectacular, marquise. I am—”

“—you’re welcome.”

When Solas reaches out, long pale hands gentle on the Inquisitor’s face, the feel of his magic shifting into a softer, smoother key in her ears, Vivienne pushes her way between them.

“Thank you, darling,” she says, enjoying the small flare of his nostrils at the word even as her own hands settle at Nasrin’s cheek and temples. “But I shall do this.”

“I’m quite all right,” Nasrin says around a cough.

“You shall be.”

***

By the time Vivienne is done, her vision is blurred and the others have made camp in the driest patch of land, as far away from the corpse as they can manage. Nasrin’s skin is still shiny in places, fragile growth stretching over gashes, but she should not scar.

“You’ll keep the eye.”

A shaky smile, warm where her fingertips brush the corner of it. “Please don’t sound so surprised,” she says. “It’s bad for my heart.”

Vivienne sighs, letting her hands slide from Nasrin’s face. “You have done me a great service, inquisitor,” she says. There’s hope of solid ground in solid speech. “I am most—”

Nasrin catches Vivienne’s hands in hers and kisses the back of them, eyes lowered, pulse hard in her throat.

“I know, madame,” she says. “It’s—I’m—”

“My dear, look at me.” The words come out clipped. Rougher than she wants. Nasrin stares at her, eyes wide. New skin and old half-hopes, bruises still scattered down the side of her face.

“You  _asked,”_ Nasrin whispers.

The kiss, when it comes, tastes of elfroot and old magic, the traces of fear-sweat on their skin. Nasrin sighs into her mouth—a soft, pliant sound that does not match the way she presses up into her, the pressure of a hand at the back of Vivienne’s neck, the tight in her robes for balance.

Vivienne bites down on her lip. Feels it swell and hopes that the blooming, small hurt takes away memories of larger ones. Breathing stutters. Matches. Nasrin’s hands soften and start to stroke patterns into her shoulder.

And Vivienne wrenches back.

“My thanks, darling,” she says. The words are small in the space that has opened up between them. “I—as I said. You have my gratitude.”

“Vi—Vivienne?”

_I am sorry._

Silence. Vivienne swallows, and turns her back on the other women who has given up all her masks.

She keeps her hands in careful fists as she strides away.  

The words cannot change.


	5. importance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Iron Bull and Vivienne discuss boundaries and power dynamics while on watch

Change of watch is quiet in the Wastes. Nasrin brings Vivienne out of sleep with a light touch to the arm, fingers light and almost apologetic to the inside of her wrist, eyes firelight bright. 

 “Very well.” Vivienne yawns behind her hand, letting herself ease ground kinks from her back as she stands. 

“All’s still,” Nasrin murmurs. “Nothing poisonous and fanged for the past three hours.” 

“How novel.” 

The huntress’s lips twitch. Vivienne is almost accustomed to noticing these tiny smiles. She keeps watching Nasrin as own body wakes up, the desert chill pricking her skin while Nasrin shucks the more cumbersome of her knives and brushes sand from her clothing. 

“Goodnight,” Nasrin says, and if she does not lay down  _quite_  in the place Vivienne has left, then it is close. 

 _This is all most unnecessary_. Vivienne watches the horizon, straining hard for the shift in her friend’s breathing that means sleep. 

“ _Fais de beaux rêves_ , marquise.” 

“ _Damn_.” 

The Iron Bull’s low sound of appreciation cuts into the silence the Inquisitor has left behind, and Vivienne glares.  

“Excuse me?” 

A low chuckle, pitched away from the camp. “Hard not to watch, ma’am. I like fireworks. “ He stretches. Vivienne is too aware of him. Too aware of the air on her own skin. 

“You know,” he adds. “Things that go bang.” 

“You are being vile, darling.” 

Leather creaks as he shrugs. “True enough.”

“And I will turn you into something small and easily squashed.” 

“You might,” Bull says. “But you should really work out what to do with the boss’s heart first. Pretty powerful shit, and it’s in your hands.” 

“I don’t know what you are trying to achieve with this conversation.” 

Bull smiles. It’s a peculiarly reassuring expression, even as to wants to throttle him. “I think you do, ma’am.” 

She snorts. “Go on,  _ben-hassrath_. Read me. You’ll find I know all my own corners.” Vivienne lifts her chin. 

“It’s a rush, isn’t it?” Bull says. “Submission? Someone  _right there_ , all their guards down. Like the boss. Your Inquisitor. Your  _Nasrin_ , who’s felt a thousand rabbit hearts under her hands and is giving you her own?” There is nothing lecherous in his smile now. He is serious, bent forward, hands outspread. “She grows loose when you’re near, doesn’t she? Leans in just a little. Looks so  _relieved_  when you take a situation and make it yours. Somewhere she can follow, because she knows you and your rules. That sound about right, ma’am?” 

Vivienne swallows. “I don’t–”

“Nah, you haven’t done anything with it, yet. I know. Just small things.  _If I ask this, will she do it? If I order this, she will do it._ Or maybe she’ll do that she thing she does with your hands. Say  _please_  in a way she knows you can hear, even if she’s not sure  _how_ she knows yet. “ He grins. _“_ And just because long and drawn out isn’t my thing doesn’t mean it isn’t doing all sorts of good shit for the two of you.”

“That is  _quite_ enough.” 

“Hush. You’ll wake her.” 

Vivienne turns, staff raised, arm high enough that the tip presses under his jaw. Ice warring with electricity as the Fade thins and presses into her skin, waiting for the right set of commands. A tug. A strike. 

Bull meets her eyes, then lets his throat fall back in a careful, deliberate arc. Shoulders shaking with silent laughter.  

“Terrifying, isn’t it?” he says, breathless. “Fucking terrifying, because the only thing you can do when handed that much trust is to give your own right back. Ma’am.” 

Vivienne steps back, lowering her staff. “You are  _insufferable_. And not entirely right.” 

“I am a  _little_ right, though? I  _am_  good. Damn.” 

She does not smile. “I do not know what the Inquisitor and I have between us,” she says. “And it certainly is no business of yours.” 

Bull shifts his weight, eyes serious. “It is if you break her.” he says. “Boss’s been a good friend. Even with all the Andraste shit.” He presses a hand to his chest. “She’s made this name stick, and I’m not going to forget it. What does she call you?” 

“My name,” Vivienne says. “All my names. And I do not break anything precious to me.”   


	6. "You did this for me?" and daylillies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gifts and flirting - art by the incredible villnis. Check them out!

_**you did this for me?** _

__

“What  _did_ you do to your hands, darling?” Vivienne asked, the third time she saw Nasrin grimace as she moved to pick a fork or draw her bow. When she caught the up, she saw reddened skin and dense bruising, even over her left palm, where fade-light shone through each blemish with sullen determination.

“Nothing too terrible,” Nasrin said. “I’m just out of practice.” 

“At what?” 

“You’ll see, Madame.” Always a smile with that answer, then a small shake of her head. “At least, I hope so. Oh–you don’t have to–”

Flustered thanks and wide eyes as Vivienne healed her wherever they stood. 

***

“It took less time than I thought it would,” Nasrin said, the day Vivienne came up to her Skyhold rooms to find Nasrin and The Iron Bull fitting a polished hardwood shelf up in a spare slip of space between her window and the door. “There was meant to be glass, of course, but there just wasn’t the right sort ans I never worked with it at home, so I didn’t trust myself to–oh, I’m babbling, aren’t I?” 

“Yep,” Bull said, barely breathless as he took the shelf’s full weight and let it settle in place.

“ _Bull_ –”

“–didn’t say it was cute, boss,” Bull said, grinning at them both and moving around Vivienne with more grace than she wanted to give him credit for, “Even though it is.” 

He was gone, and Nasrin was not, and Vivienne stared at the shelf, taller than she was, with gilded scrollwork and the Monstimmard Circle insignia etched into the top part of its frame. Butterflies and dragonflies slipped through climbing vines that shaped intricate knots. 

“I should have asked if you liked it, first,” Nasrin said, rueful. “Before dragging it up here. But I went a little mad, you know? That feeling when you make something and it  _almost_ looks like how it’s meant to in your head, even without the glass? So. Um.” 

“You made this, marquise?” Vivienne asked.

“For your books.” Nasrin swallowed. “The ones we’ve been picking up from Circle caches and up ruined towers. You were talking about needing space for them, and how much you missed your library, so–I did a lot of this. At home.”

Vivienne watched her smile. It was soft and distracted, even as Nasrin’s hands reached up to trace the scars at her throat. 

 “People respect craftsmanship more than anything else in Serault, “ Nasrin said. “Even among the high families. I’d never be able to take tea with the Guildmistress if I didn’t know my way around  _something_. My mother was a goldsmith. I did better with wood, and so I thought I–did I do wrong, Vivienne?” 

Vivienne swallowed. “Oh, my dear,” she breathed. “You did all this for  _me_?”

* * *

 

**Daylilies**

****

Nasrin scowled at her reflection, even as Vivienne’s came up to join her from behind. 

“Careful, darling. It’ll stick.” 

Her hand settled on Nasrin’s shoulder, careful not to crease the red fabric. 

“If I have to stumble through a ballroom again,” Nasrin said, “I could at least be dressed in something that  _suits_  me. This–” 

Vivienne’s lips curved. “The trousers are quite dashing.” 

“I am a toy soldier!” 

The words came out louder than Nasrin expected, and she laughed at the sound of it, watching herself in the mirror as her shoulders shook and Vivienne’s hand slid to the nape of her neck 

“So perhaps,” she managed, breathless, “This is all more appropriate than I would like. Thank you, too.”

“What for, my dear?” 

“Coming with me to this farce.” 

Vivienne’s smile deepened, but something quiet and series settled behind, fingers flexing on skin. “I would be deeply disappointed if you had not, marquise.” 

 _Marquise._ There was no shame in the word now. Shame’s shadow, sometimes, coloured like the view from her old window and rustling like once familiar leaves, but the  _taste_ had changed, in Vivienne’s mouth. She watched a flush rise up her own throat, spill over her cheeks. 

“What could you be thinking, I wonder?” Vivienne murmurs, voice cool and soft as Nasrin does her best not to squirm. 

“I–” Nasrin swallowed. “I hope you shall save a dance for me, madame.” 

Vivienne tilts her head, slowly drawing her fingers away. She paused whenever Nasrin’s breath caught, eyes never leaving Nasrin’s in the mirror. 

“I see,” she said. “And would  _you_ be deeply disappointed if I did not?” 

 


	7. balcony roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a promised dance - a direct follow on from **daylilies**

Nasrin stood on a balcony of the Winter Palace, her hands curled about the railing. Her grip mixed with of a trick of the moonlight until she was silvered, blurring into stone. 

Vivienne watched. The music of the ballroom pressed up against her back and and roiled with the night air, dizzy and uncertain. She leaned out into the cooler space and was almost glad for the rose scratches that dragged across Nasrin’s hands, around her wrists. They were new and angry, the sort of markings flesh took more than statues. They stung. They were safe. 

 _Foolishness. All of it._  Vivienne sighed, and Nasrin heard her. 

That was clear in straightened shoulders. Half a breath.  Her hands flexed and Vivienne imagined the stone cracking under bodied weight.

“This,” Nasrin said, “Is the third longest night of my life.” 

“So specific?” 

Nasrin smiled, turning to face Vivienne, palms raised so that the light from the anchor added eerie, bruised undertones to the night. “I have a good memory,” she said. “And like to list things.” 

“The rose of Serault,” Vivienne intoned, cheeks aching as she did her best to hold in a smile that would be sweeter if she let wait, just for a while. “Huntress, Marquis and maker of lists. I am truly charmed.”

“No has  _ever_ called me that,” Nasrin spluttered. “And I had the drippiest bard you might imagine.” 

Vivienne moved closer, letting the door close so that the noise and heat of the ball hung around her in ragged wisps. Her steps echoed on the tile. Even. Steady. “Perhaps they should have done, marquise,” she said. “I didn’t know you had a bard. Was he doleful and poetic?” 

“Incurably.” 

“And what did he sing about?” 

“Stags, in my presence” said Nasrin, She grinned. “A bear, thought we never caught her. A lot of horses, my dogs–”

“–Maker  _save me_  from the country.” 

“That’s just what he said.” Nasrin shrugged. She leaned in when Vivienne joined her at the rail. They touched at shoulder and hip. “And then he would console himself with odes to the Guildmistress’s glass-spun smile or my eyes in his off hours. They were awful.” 

“Why did you keep him?” 

“He was  _awful_ ,” Nasrin repeated. “Who else would have him?”

Vivienne groaned.”You do, I suppose, have very fine eyes.” 

“You suppose?” 

“You won’t catch me out, darling,” Vivienne said, fingers brushing Nasrin’s on the railing. They were stone cold, except for the scratches. They both winced. 

“I’d have thought,” Vivienne said, “An intrepid huntress would be better at scaling garden walls.” 

“There were a  _lot_ of roses,” Nasrin muttered. “And it was the quickest way up.” 

“You were magnificent,” Vivienne said. “Even bloodied.”

“Flatterer.” 

“And you danced beautifully with Florianne.” 

“I didn’t notice,” Nasrin said, swallowing. “Too busy trying not to get stabbed, Also, not to kick her in the ankle. She didn’t even remember me. We tried to drown each other when we were six. That should count for  _something_.” She tugged on her hair, expression turning rueful. “Of course, she was busy plotting treason, and I wasn’t  _quite_  so grey.” 

“You,” Vivienne said, “Can be quite silly. It’s taken me a long time to notice.” 

Another swallow, the hand at her hair falling limply to her side. “What did you notice first?” 

“How much you could help me, Inquisitor,” Vivienne said. She allowed herself a shrug. “ _Then_ your eyes.” 

Those same eyes widened, then dropped, breath hitching. 

“None of that, dear. Look at me.”

Nasrin raised her head, and Vivienne caught her jaw, thumb brushing her lower lip. 

“We never had our dance, marquise.” Vivienne sighed. “And you promised me one.” 

“I–”

“–go to the door, marquise.” 

As Nasrin stared, her blush grew hectic. Silence unspooled, bright and nearly sharp. 

“The  _door,_ Nasrin.”  

The noise that rose from Nasrin’s throat was half growl, half whimper. She obeyed, stumbling, hands bumping into the stained glass. It was figured with animals and flowers. Andraste’s face. Art made from wealth. 

“Open it,” Vivienne said. “Just a crack. Are they playing a waltz?” 

A flute bubbled out. Light and sweet and determinedly six-eight. Heartbeat speed. Nasrin, still blushing, shook her head. 

“Well.” Vivienne walked toward her. Steps ate space util she could lean around Nasrin and shut the door. “That is no help at all. We’ll have to make our own. Can you sing?” 

“No!” 

“No matter.” Vivienne fit her arms around the other woman. Smiled as Nasrin’s taller frame shaped hers, hands sliding to the small of Vivienne’s back. 

“No one ever orders me around the way you do,” Nasrin muttered. .  

“Clearly, my dear,” said Vivienne. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be surprised you like it so much.”    

“ _Vivienne!”_

“Oh, hush,” Vivienne said. She reached up, pressed a soft kiss to Nasrin’s temple. “Dance with me. Make tonight a little longer.”  


	8. right hand of the Divine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nasrin and Vivienne are honest with each other once Corypheus is gone.

The party is delightful. Josephine has not outdone herself–Vivienne expects that none of them have seen the ambassador truly stretch the limits of her capabilities. Some things, even at the end of the world, are too vast. But the pleasantry rolls off her tongue and Josephine accepts it with grace and barely a glance over to the petit-fours that are, if overheard, ragged whispers are to be believed, “Just not quite  _right_ , Leliana. Do stop laughing.”

“You have more reason to celebrate then the rest of us, madame Vivienne,” Josephine says now, the lights from the chandeliers dripping restored light through her hair and over her skin.

Vivienne smiles. “Perhaps. Things shall be frightfully busy.”

 _So say I to the one person here who has any right to protest her own workload._ The thought is rueful, kept contained. If Josephine suppresses any sardonic looks, the effort does not show on her face.

People surge and swell around them, leaving drifts of conversation behind. Dagna stares at refracted light through a wineglass, leaning back against Sera, who stands with arms looped through the other woman’s and a softer expression on her face than Vivienne has ever seen. Her free hand tugs at a tablecloth, careful mountains of glassware creaking ominously as the fabric shifts. Leliana had ordered clear space along with tonight’s musicians in a fit of whimsy, and Varric and Cassandra are carefully  _not_ dancing. They stand close, shoulder pressed to arm, eyes anywhere but each other. Cullen attempts to blend in with one of the old armour sets against a far wall, and Vivienne wonders, for as much time as it takes for her to check his movement and swallow some of her drink, when the Templar stopped being the first person she noticed in any shared space.

The Inqusitor, patches of new-healed skin still showing raw across her cheeks and the backs of her hands under her wealth of light, has a hand resting on the ersatz Blackwall’s shoulder, lips pinched as he offers words Vivienne cannot quite pick out over the crush. They, she thinks, looking at the shape of her friend’s mouth, are speaking Orlesian.

Bull raises a tankard in her direction. Vivienne bites back a sigh.

“Madame?”

“Forgive me, darling. I find myself distracted. It is a  _lovely_  party.”

A tucked-up smile from the ambassador. “I should rescue the punch table from Sera. Please excuse me.”

“Good luck,” Vivienne says. “For my part, I—”

—Nasrin is heading toward the door, brushing off curious hands and thanks with increasing fervour the closer she comes to her destination. Her head is up, her colour high, and Vivienne almost laughs. It’s an old walk. The kind the marquise would have had tutors for, that Vivienne had learned from need.

_Eyes front. Shoulders back. Move like the world cannot touch you, darling._

_“_ A moment of your time, Inquisitor?”

She is smiling as she steps in front of Nasrin, the corners of her mouth aching from the effort of keeping things seemly. Nasrin startles at her voice, eyes widening.

“I thought—you said there were preparations,” she stammers, back resting against the doorway that leads from the great hall to her chambers.

“Honestly, my dear.” Easy to move a hand, let it brace on the stone just by Nasrin’s face. “These  _are_  preparations. And I would never miss your party.”

“I don’t think I could say the same.”

Vivienne laughs, eyes moving as Nasrin swallows. She wants to catch each tiny movement. “I know. Still, I  _would_  like a word.”

“I—of course.” Nasrin turns, still within the light cage made by Vivienne’s body, and the door opens under her hands. They both step through.

***

“You have been avoiding me, my dear.”

Nasrin does not want to die. The effort of  _not_  dying over the past few months shows in every twinge of muscle, each curl of pain that ghosts the bones of her arms, her fingers and the back of her skull. The straight bones each leg. But she thinks she  _might_ , with Vivienne in her space, hands wrapped fast about her own as she draws Nasrin out into the balcony.

“I—”

“—I know why, marquise. And it is all right.”

Nasrin swallows. “Do you?” she asks. “Is it?”

“I was not fair to you, over the wyvern. The cure for my Bastien.” Pain flickers across her face, clear even though Nasrin is turned into the glare of the setting sun. “I would do everything again, of course,” she says. “But I am aware of—”

“—he is important to you,” Nasrin says. Not  _was_. Importance does not care about bodies. She tugs at the ring she wears on a chain that hangs to the base of her throat. The thank you gift for dangerous alchemy that did not do its job. “I would  _always_  help. I—”

“—you care for me, darling,” Vivienne says. “A great deal.”

The floor is solid. Good stone. Old as gods. It shouldn’t be. “This is what you want to talk about?”

“You have made me Divine,” Vivienne says, head tilted to the side. “Not solely you, of course. But your influence has allowed me to find doors I did not know could be opened. As I’d hoped. And I have helped you a great deal, of course. Your own fear of magic is considerably—”

“—are you  _babbling,_  madame?”

“— _I_  care. Very much.”

Nasrin has too much skin. Clothing rasps, and if she looks up, if she sees the small, soft smile that graces Vivienne’s face, she is unsure if she will ever breathe again. A whimper is caught up in her throat along with all her air.

Vivienne’s hands move to her cheeks, fingertips blooming cold as the anchor in Nasrin’s left hand flares in response to the small magic. Nasrin feels it trickling through her skin. Her lips part.

“Breathe, my dear,” Vivienne says, stern. “If you insist I must then you really  _should_ return in kind.”

Nasrin turns her face into the other woman’s touch, Her lower lip grazes a fingertip, sticking in a shock of pain as cold flares into heat. She gasps. Vivienne closes her eyes.

With an effort, Nasrin pulls back, unable to stop herself from running her tongue over her lower lip. “Why tell me now?” she asks.

“I have told you before,” says Vivienne. “But sometimes we deserve something explicit, don’t you think?”

Who can  _think_?

Vivienne is not done. She reaches out again, one hand twining with Nasrin’s marked one. “Thanks to our efforts,” she says, “I am going to be  _exceptionally_ busy. But I did not want you to ever—I had a concern you might—” she breaks off. “You must never doubt me, Inquisitor.”

“Nasrin,” says Nasrin.

“Your pardon?”

“Please,” she whispers, and the sound is so much smaller than it should be that Nasrin is surprised it isn’t lost under the sound of her own heartbeat. “I just my name, with you,” she says. She lifts her free hand, palm up. “And perhaps this.”

“Your right hand?”

“ _Yours_ ,” Nasrin says. “If you are the next Divine.”

Slowly, Vivienne drops Nasrin’s left hand and reaches for the chain around her neck. She tugs. The metal snaps as she does, a small line of pain on Nasrin’s skin, but she does not move. She keeps staring up at the mage as she picks up the gold ring she had crafted with careful fingers.

Nasrin raises her right hand.

They are both silent as Vivienne slides the ring onto the forth finger there. Her eyes are intent as she lowers her head, and Nasrin swallows another gasp as Vivienne lets her lips drag across the knuckles. Acceptance and promise, understood in touch.

“Kiss me,” Vivienne says, voice fainter than Nasrin has ever heard. “Kiss me and seal it, Nasrin.”


	9. coming home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first two years are a challenge.

> _Do come, darling. You must, of course. Divine commands and such, but this post script is simply my own request. It has been too long, marquise, and I am still, as ever:  
> _
> 
> _your Vivienne.”_

There were never many letters. The Inquisition was a mix of giant hunting party and the sea. A moving, restless thing that its Inquisitor only half understood, even as she she as she reached corners of intrigue around doors left open by Corypheus’s death.  _I meddle,_ she did not write,  _because I am causeless and adrift, my lady. And Leliana is a terrible influence._

 _Ask for my help_ , she did not write after the first of Divine Victoria’s three revolts, even as half her forces were dispatched to keep one half of the chantry from fire and slaughter and magebane. Cullen nurses a broken jaw from his warnings for Nasrin to keep back.  _Demand it. It’s already given._

 _I can’t use a bow any more_ ,  _Vivienne,_  she did not write.  _The mark is…very strange. Dagna keeps detailed notes. They are terrifying. All I know is that my fingers won’t work for the draw. I’m stuck with knives. It is ugly, close work. I don’t know how I can miss you and be glad that you cannot see me all at once._

The palace of the Divine had too many eyes for Nasrin to feel quite comfortable spilling her heart onto a page, and Vivienne had never asked it of her. 

Nasrin--aching and angry,  tangled up in two years of waiting and ready to bleed--wished she would. 

* * *

Divine Victoria wore no mask. The game, in this place, showed itself in robe and bearing and a smile that matched new portraits, the sunburst throne twining with magefire and a Serault glass motif that made Nasrin’s heart jump into her throat. 

“ _Relax_ ,” Vivienne said, hands loose about Nasrin’s wrists, the action hidden by her sleeves. “The delegates will be more willing to listen to you if you appear calm, Inquisitor.”

Nasrin grit her teeth and nodded. Did her level best not to shudder as Vivienne’s thumb pressed up into the pulse of her wrist. 

“I know, my dear,” said Vivienne. “I  _do_ know.” 

“I will you in the council,” Nasrin managed. “Of course.” 

“Of course,” said Vivienne. “And if there is anything you need, all you need do is ask and–” 

“– _time_ , said Nasrin, choked. “Wiith you. Now. Without–” her head lifted. She could not gesture without her hands. “Please.”

* * *

Vivienne tugged her into the spa. Plants that thrived near steam stretched lacy, green shadows over marble and their skin. Attendants bowed. At a look, they left. 

“I  admit,” Vivienne said, smile slow, almost nervous. “I made this appointment ages ago. The minute the council was announced, knowing you were here.” 

“To a bathhouse?” 

“’A bathhouse’, she says.” Vivienne snorted. “I have missed you, you queer, country thing.” 

Nasrin shook her head. “I still miss my own,” she said. “They never quite got it right at Skyhold, but this…” she sighed. “I half expect to be turfed out of here. Ruining the grandeur.” 

Vivienne laugh echoed through the warm space. She reached out and started to work, slowly, on the buttons of Nasrin’s shirt. 

“Darling,” she said. “You are the Inquisitor and I am the Divine. What maker-fearing soul would protest?” 

“I–” Nasrin swallowed. “I see your point.” 

“I see  _you_ ,” Vivienne said, quiet. Steady. “Are you quite well?” 

The shirt rasped against her skin, sliding off her shoulders under Vivienne’s careful hands. She grimaced as Vivienne’s eyes immediately fell to the green, radiant streaks that ran from palm to shoulder. She was close enough that Nasrin felt heat and pressure between their bodies. The places they had yet to touch. 

“I–”

“–I know you won’t lie to me, marquise.” 

“No,” Nasrin said. 

Vivienne nodded. Once, and sharp, even as her hands slid up the back of Nasrin’s neck, settling in her hair. 

“I did not want you to worry unduly,” Vivienne said. “And I thought–well. I  _care_  for you, and did want this used.  I, of course, use our connection abominably, of course. There is a need. And yet, when you did not write–”

“–because  _you_ did not,” Nasrin said, and she shook under the touch. Back straight and eyes wide, breath coming fast. “And–I don’t–” she would dissolve. She would sink through the floor and be drained away with other spa leavings. “You were here,” she said. “And I was–” 

Her hand fisted. 

“I don’t know what to do, Vivienne.” 

“More, Vivienne said. She pressed a kiss to Nasrin’s cheek, lips dragging slowly up to eyelid, to forehead, back down to her mouth, chapped and bitten raw. “I shall do more. Seeing you is–” her smile grew, one hand staying tangled in Nasrin’s hair while the other traced patterns down Nasrin’s near-naked back. “You promised to be my right hand, dear one. I have not chosen another. Stay still.” 

Nasrin did not cry out as Vivienne disentangled herself, shrugging out of raiments with quick motions, eyes still locked to hers. She took Nasrin’s hands in hers again, kissed both palms. 

“There is much to resolve, I know,” she said, falling back into one of the long couches made ready for them and tugging Nasrin with her, hands spanning her hip, the base of her throat. She let fingertips linger there, waited for the other woman to swallow. 

“I have made many homes for myself, my dear,” she said, while Nasrin shifted, taut and barely breathing. “I would make the next with you.” 


	10. trespass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Vivienne?” Nasrin stood on the other side, good hand out to catch her as she staggered under what felt like the weight of re-forming bones. Theologically fascinating. But ghastly. “You still with me?”
> 
> “Always, darling.”

Eluvians hurt. Vivienne was used to magical costs. Any discipline worth its metaphysical salt demanded something in exchange, even if you refused to turn Tevinter. Vivienne told countless students as much, in he grim years before Celene’s court.

Now, mirror melting round her, eyes full of grit and heartbeat pressing up too close against the inside of her skin, a part of her wished she could push her younger self down the stairs.

“Vivienne?” Nasrin stood on the other side, good hand out to catch her as she staggered under what felt like the weight of re-forming bones. Theologically fascinating. But ghastly. “You still with me?”

“Always, darling.”

Nasrin stared at her, ashy under rift-light, all bloodshot eyes and old sweat and concern. “I don’t think bodies are meant for this,” she said. “Not ours, anyway.”

“No  _shit_.” That was Bull, sill towering above all the spindly trees and broken stone structures around them, even hunched over and wiping his face with the back of his hand.

Vivienne shook her head. “Honestly,” she said. “The pair of you are quite tedious.”

“Won’t you complain?” Nasrin said, with a tiny smile. “Even a little? Join in the fun?”

“Divines don’t have any fun,” Bull said. “If they did, think you’d be slumming it with the Inquisition for two years, boss?”

“That’s quite enough from you.”

“Apologies, ma’am.”

 _Look at us_ , Vivienne thought.  _Bickering our way between worlds._

The three of them were scratched and limping, each trip through the mirrors leaving a little less behind, and Vivienne wasn’t sure if she wanted to freeze Bull solid for making the Nasrin blush, or embrace the ridiculous, insightful  _ben hassrath_ for distracting all of them from the way they could all see the bones in the Inquisitor’s left hand. If they could all bicker, they were safe from flash fevers and twisting wolf puzzles and the way Nasrin was pushed, fist first, into each Eluvian, the rest of her body a gaunt, unwilling passenger no matter how much she swore or fought.

 _Though,_ she mused.  _I shouldn’t think of him as ben hassrath now, after that last fight._ Vivienne still shuddered when she thought of the brief, lost look on Bull’s face when Viddasala named him Hissrad. A moment of held breath and weighed options—a game Vivienne did not understand.

She was glad she did not have to kill him. Glad she and Nasrin did not have to try and save the other from the death of a friend.  

Unsettling thoughts.

Nasrin sighed, letting her good hand close around Vivienne’s left. “I’ve gone soft,” she said. “Hunts were easier five years ago.”

“Only because the stakes are higher, marquise.”

An echo of a smile for that. “I thought this was all going to be meetings and ceremony,” she said. “I was  _prepared._ I was going to be  _bored stupid_  and it was going to be  _fine_.”

“Bored stupid,” Vivienne murmured. “Not with me, surely.”

She laughed as Nasrin blushed under her layer of grime.

“When we complete this task, Inquisitor,” Vivienne said, squeezing Nasrin’s hand, “We are going back to the palace baths.”

“Um. I—” even here, it was a joy watching her squirm under a light hold and few words. “We’re not done.”

“No, dear,” Vivienne said. “Not at  _all_.”

* * *

Nasrin knew what the others were doing, Did her best to join in the banter, let herself unravel a little as Vivienne warmed and teased the way they hadn’t managed in years. Not in person. She let Bull complain and mock them both and did her best not to sit on the uncanny ground laughing until she wailed.

The world always narrowed down to small things.

Fighting Viddasala, feeling herself fray around pain in her hand that felt more solid than the rest of her body, Nasrin remembered the Fade. The slow drip down her back that said she was random chance and poor luck, instead of anyone’s Herald. She remembered hopelessness and fears writ large on tombstones and Hawke’s wild-eyed instance that they all  _run_ , that this was her hunt, not Nasrin’s. She remembered bowing before the image of the Divine until even she knew it was a wistful snatch of spirit – an echo of a human leader who did harm as well as good. The loss, so huge then, felt bruise-like now.

 _If you are frightened, **marquise** ,_ Vivienne had told her in the panicky, crowded midst of it, one hand over Nasrin’s mouth and the title a barb between them,  _pretend. Until you don’t need to._

 _Not with you_ , she’d said against the other woman’s palm. Foolish and besotted and only half knowing it.  _I don’t pretend with you_.

Now, Nasrin knew herself a liar. She pretended with all her strength, ignoring her own face and everything Vivienne could probably read from it by letting the damned anchor drag her where it will. She fought. She fell over. She dropped her left dagger forgetting that her fingers didn’t want to bend. She let herself blush and love and lose herself whenever she and Vivienne had half seconds of privacy and she pretended, the whole way through, that it was another quest, another puzzle. That she wasn’t sure, with each Eluvian, that she was about to die.

Nasrin knew what the others were doing. She did it right back, until she found herself the only one standing among Qunari statues and yellowing grass.

“I suspect,” Solas said, as Nasrin staggered forward, scanning for the bodies of her friends in the ruins, “You have questions.”

_Pretend, marquise. And when we complete this task…_

“Solas,” Nasrin said, “Have I ever wanted to hear one of your endless explanations?”

She lifted her head as pain shot up her arm, a small, dazed part of her enjoying Solas’s annoyed expression and storing it up for for a later she wasn’t sure was real. “Ever?”

She did, she thought, sound like herself. Inquisitor. Serault’s unlucky Marquise. Vivienne’s blessed Right Hand. Exhausted.

Nasrin.


End file.
